Need Essay done by 11PM

Welcome to RedShelf eReader! Just getting started? Head over to our partner support page for a guide on the basics.

Kurt Baier

over causal explanation. The existence of the universe cannot be explained in accordance with the familiar model of manufacture by a craftsman. For that model presupposes the existence of materials out of which the product is fash- ioned. God, on the other hand, must create the materials as well. Moreover, although we have a simple model of “creation out of nothing,” for composers create tunes out of nothing, yet this is a great difference between creating some- thing to be sung, and making the sounds which are a singing of it, or producing the piano on which to play it. Let us, however, waive all these objections and admit, for argument’s sake, that creation out of nothing is conceivable. Surely, even so, no one can claim that it is the kind of explanation which yields the clear- est and fullest understanding. Surely, to round off scientific explanations of the origin of the universe with creation out of nothing, does not add anything to our understanding. There may be merit of some sort in this way of speaking, but whatever it is, it is not greater clarity or explanatory power.9

What then, does all this amount to? Merely to the claim that scientific ex- planations are no worse than any other. All that has been shown is that all ex- planations suffer from the same defect: all involve a vicious infinite regress. In other words, no type of human explanation can help us to unravel the ultimate, unanswerable mystery. Christian ways of looking at things may not be able to render the world any more lucid than science can, but at least they do not pretend that there are no impenetrable mysteries. On the contrary, they point out untiringly that the claims of science to be able to elucidate ev- erything are hollow. They remind us that science is not merely limited to the exploration of a tiny corner of the universe but that, however far out probing instruments may eventually reach, we can never even approach the answers to the last questions: “Why is there a world at all rather than nothing?” and “Why is the world such as it is and not different?” Here our finite human intellect bumps against its own boundary walls.

Is it true that scientific explanations involve an infinite vicious regress? Are scientific explanations really only provisional and incomplete? The cru- cial point will be this. Do all contingent truths call for explanation? Is the principle of sufficient reason sound? Can scientific explanations never come to a definite end? It will be seen that with a clear grasp of the nature and pur- pose of explanation we can answer these questions.10

Explaining something to someone is making him understand it. This in- volves bringing together in his mind two things, a model which is accepted as already simple and clear, and that which is to be explained, the explican- dum, which is not so. Understanding the explicandum is seeing that it be- longs to a range of things which could legitimately have been expected by anyone familiar with the model and with certain facts.

There are, however, two fundamentally different positions which a person may occupy relative to some explicandum. He may not be familiar with any model capable of leading him to expect the phenomenon to be ex- plained. Most of us, for instance, are in that position in relation to the phe-

p. 82

82

Play From Top Play Volume Rate

CloseBack Stop Forward